Gmail Acting Up? It's Not Just You

10 years

If your Gmail account is down or consistently throwing random errors your way, like my account is right now, note that it isn’t just you. According to the Apps Status Dashboard, a “significant subset of users” started running into trouble at around 9:45 AM Pacific Time.

At 11:34 PM, Google posted an update, saying that Google Mail service had been restored for some users, and that it expected a resolution for all users “within the next 4 hours” (estimate).

This is the first status update that was posted:

We’re aware of a problem with Google Mail affecting a significant subset of users. The affected users are able to access Google Mail, but are seeing error messages and/or other unexpected behavior. We will provide an update by February 25, 2010 8:44:00 PM UTC+1 detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.

Affected users are experiencing difficulties or delays receiving mail fetched via POP from external mail providers to Gmail . These messages are not lost and should still be stored at the users’ external POP service.

And the second:

Google Mail service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users within the next 4 hours. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change.

It’s rare that Google speaks of a significant number of users when problems arise – usually they say a ‘small subset’ – but a Twitter search actually shows a surprisingly low number of tweets about any issues people are having with their Gmail accounts.